The Last Cowboy In Texas (19 page)

“Ask away, dear heart.”

“Last night, and again just now, you called me Lady Eve. Where did you get that name?”

His face flamed, his eyes avoiding hers as his gazed dropped to the carpet. “I, uh—well, your mom shared some of your writing with me. When you called me Sir Robert last night, I remembered the name you’d used for yourself was Lady Eve. Why?”

“For myself?”
Mom told him that?
Stirred to anger that her mom had betrayed her trust so blatantly, she snarled, “That was a name I used for one of my characters.”

“Yeah, but Cil said your writing was all about you and me. I assumed-”

“You assumed wrong, Troy Roberts! You had no right to read that, much less repeat any of it to me. Assuming that I’ve been writing down my fantasies over you? For god’s sake, will you ever get over yourself?”

“Over myself? Paige, what the hell are you so upset about, out of the blue?”

“Just a major betrayal of everything dear to me. Nothing, obviously, that would be of concern to you, mister big-time realtor.”

Her incendiary words inflamed his anger. “Hold on there, miss high and mighty. You have no call to go off on me. Or your mom, for that matter. We all love you, and we think you have a great future as a fiction novelist. Even a major publisher thinks so.”

“What?”

“Yeah, smarty-pants. Your mom and dad sent one of your books off to a publisher and they just heard back that the man wants to publish your novel. Didn’t Cil tell you?”

“No! And I didn’t give her permission to even read the damn book, much less send it off without my knowledge.” The sudden revelation of what her folks had done left her reeling. Dizzy with the conflicting emotions of the moment, she swayed back and forth, trying desperately to maintain her footing.

“Paige, are you okay? You look like you’re about to faint.”

She snapped, “Yeah, I am, and that would be just fine with me, especially if I wake up to learn that this has all been just one giant nightmare.”

“What has been a nightmare?”

She waved her hand, indicating the room. “This room. This house.” Pausing for emphasis, she added, “You.” Holding her ring hand up, she whispered, “What have I got myself into, this time?”

“A future we’ve both dreamed about for ages, I hope. Paige, I love you, and you love me. This is just the beginning of a whole new dawning.”

“For you, maybe, but it’s a nightmare for me.”

“Paige-”

She yanked the ring off her finger and flung it at him. “Here! Take your damn ring and go to hell with it. I told you once and I’ll tell you again, I wouldn’t marry you if you really were the last cowboy in
Texas
!”

* * *

He’d missed catching the ring and turned to look for it. When he found it in the far corner of the room, he grabbed it and spun around in time to see her slam the door of the bathroom. He tried the door but it was locked. “Come on, Paige. I’m sorry for whatever the hell you think I’ve done now. Let’s talk this out.”

Her voice came from inside the room. “There’s nothing to talk out,
Troy
. We had our moment of fun. After all, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? I’m going to shower, and I hope I can wash off the filthy feeling this morning has given me. Now, leave me the hell alone!”

He stared at the locked door for long moments. When she said nothing else, and he heard the water running in the shower, he turned back to the tray sitting precariously on the bed. Taking the cup of now lukewarm coffee, he drained it. He’d taken one bite of the roll when it hit him that he’d somehow messed up royally. Again. His dream had also just morphed into a whopper of a nightmare. Especially if he’d just gotten her pregnant.
Holy-moly!

He sat in the high-back chair, waiting for her to emerge from the shower. She did so, wrapped in one of his plush oversize towels, glaring at him across the room. He watched with detached concern while she put her clothes on. All of them.

She returned to the bathroom, working her hair into her customary severe bun. When she looked sufficiently businesslike, she came out and scowled at him. “Can I count on you for a ride to my car? Or would it be better if I call for someone to come get me?”

“I’ll take you to your car. Then we can go to your home and you can tell your folks about our good news. I don’t see that a simple argument is all it takes to spoil our plans, Paige.”

“You don’t see lots of things,
Troy
. Our engagement is off. If you’ve lost the ring, I’ll gladly reimburse you for it.”

“I didn’t.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced the ring. “Here it is. If you’ll promise to keep it on your finger, I’ll give it back to you.”

“You don’t say? The only promise I’ll make is that I never want to see you again after today. And that’s one I’ll be sure to keep.” Giving the lie to her words, she grabbed the ring from his fingers and put it on her right hand ring finger. “This will remind me of my folly.”

“Paige? We have to get ready for Aggie and JT’s wedding. Can’t we put this discussion off until after their big day?”

She paused half way down the stairs. What she wanted right at this moment was to find a hole, fall into it, and pull the hole in after her. How could she stand in public, arm in arm with this baboon, pretending she was the happiest girl in the room. Uh, the second happiest.

An image of Aggie’s expectant face crossed her mind.
Expectant
?
Oh God, I have to do it. No matter how much I hate
Troy
and my parents, I can’t let Aggie down.
“Okay. We’ll do this for Aggie and JT. Just don’t expect me to be all giggly-ho-ho.”

He nodded. “I won’t expect anything except for you to be civil in front of others. And try to be happy for the sake of the wedding couple, okay?”

“I can do that. Now, will you please take me to my car so I can get home and dressed for the wedding. I don’t want to be late.”

The ride into Branson was quiet and blessedly short.
Troy
had set a new speed record getting her downtown to where her car was parked. Her mind was a blur of emotions as she slid into it and started for home. What would she do when she saw her mother? She had to keep her cool or today would become a disaster. Well, hell. It was already a disaster.

Chapter Twelve

Paige pulled into the drive, aware that both her parents stood on the front porch, their faces reflecting concern. Before she could get out, her dad was off the steps and striding toward her. Her attempted big smile fell short. “Morning, Dad.”

“Morning, hell! Where have you been all night, young lady? Your mother was scared to death, worrying about you.”

“Dad, I’m a grown woman if you haven’t noticed. I spent the night at
Troy
’s.”

“Humph.” Her blatant pronouncement set him on his heels. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Unable to resist a tart reply, she found herself getting a perverse kick out of this ugly scene. “It means whatever the hell I want it to mean.”

“Paige! Stop talking this nonsense right now. As your father, I won’t tolerate-”

“What won’t you tolerate?” she fairly screamed. “My being a grown up who makes up her own mind what she will and won’t do? And who she’ll do it with? Is that it?”

Cil had come down to stand at Ozzie’s side. “Honey, we know you’re an adult. We were just worried that something awful had happened to you. Why didn’t you call?”

Paige snorted. “Well, something awful did happen to me. I let that know-it-all buffoon make love to me. And then, when he has my head so full of the baloney that he loves me, he tells me you and dad betrayed my confidence by showing him my writing. How could you do something like that to your own daughter, grown up or not?”

Cil’s face paled. “He told you? I expressly asked him to keep it to himself until we’d had a chance to tell you the good news. We thought it would be best if we waited until after Aggie’s wedding to share it with you.”

“Well, wasn’t that sweet of you? You thought that what I don’t know won’t hurt me? Damn it, Mom, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Last night,
Troy
asked me to marry him. I said yes.”

Before she could reveal the rest of her story, Ozzie clapped his hands. “Glory hallelujah! Girl, that’s great. We’d begun to won-”

“Great? You’re so ready to pawn me off, to rid yourselves of me, that you think this kind of betrayal by my parents and the man I thought I loved is okay?”

Cil snarled, “Paige! Stop this right now. Nobody betrayed you in anything. We saw the genius in your writing. We also knew you wouldn’t take the necessary steps to get it published until it was perfect, something that fiction writing never is.

“All we did was to take your text, exactly as you’d scribed it, and sent it in to an old college friend of your dad’s. The most I’d hoped for was a good analysis of your work and some pointers to help you achieve the perfection you’re after.”

Paige pursed her lips, drawing the lower one over her teeth as she considered her mom’s words. “Okay. I’ll give you that. I am after perfection. But I wanted to send it after I’d gone back over it again. Now I suppose I’ll have to find another publisher when I think it’s ready to go.”

“No you won’t. Honey, your book has been accepted. Come inside and you can see the contract they sent. It calls for three more books in the series they want to publish of your work. Ozzie tells me a four book contract is rare, especially for a debut author.”

Paige was stunned. Her first book was sold and she hadn’t even submitted it. Not only that, but she’d sold the other two completed novels, and the one she was still working on. She stared at her folks, trying to comprehend the enormity of what had just happened.

Finally, she muttered, “I see. How soon do they want everything sent in?”

Ozzie said, “They have the first one already, so they’ll begin editing it right away. Hal said he’ll set up a schedule to release your books, one a quarter. That way, your readership will grow over the space of the first year. After that, you’re on your way to stardom, sweetheart.”

“Stardom, yeah. I can just see it now.”

“Paige, don’t be so sarcastic. They love your voice, and your writing style. Said it’s the freshest approach to regency historical writing they’ve seen in many a year. That’s a rare compliment. Honey, we just want you to be able to do what you want.”

“What I want right now is to crawl off under a rock someplace. I’ve dreamed for years of having my books published, but I expected to go through the travail most authors experience for myself. How convenient to have an old buddy just waiting to publish your daughter’s scribbling.”

“Damn it, Paige, they’re not scribbling! They’re good. They’re damn good, or my old pal would have said so. He just happens to be the head of one of the best publishing houses in the world. If he says it’s good, it’s good, and that’s that.”

“Yeah. That’s that, all right.” She pushed past them and stomped up the steps and into the house. It was time to get ready to march her newfound friend down the aisle to that blasted altar.

* * *

Troy
fussed and fumed after he’d gotten into his tux. He’d spent little time in the bedroom, other than to get cleaned up and dressed for the wedding. Each time he glanced at the still unmade bed, he winced. Making love to Paige had been the realization of a life long dream. Better than anything he’d ever imagined, she’d been so receptive to his advances, so damn good at the act without any foreknowledge near as he could tell.

He’d bedded a few innocent women, so he had a pretty good idea how things usually went. This was better by far. Perhaps for the very reason he’d dreamed of it happening for so long. He loved the woman with all his heart, and that love had turned a physical act into a true expression of love.